Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope (interesting books to read TXT) 📖

muscles; the true physician should

hardly be aware that the last friendly grasp of the hand had been

made more precious by the touch of gold. Whereas, that fellow Thorne

would lug out half a crown from his breeches pocket and give it in

change for a ten shilling piece. And then it was clear that this man

had no appreciation of the dignity of a learned profession. He might

constantly be seen compounding medicines in the shop, at the left

hand of his front door; not making experiments philosophically in

materia medica for the benefit of coming ages—which, if he did, he

should have done in the seclusion of his study, far from profane

eyes—but positively putting together common powders for rural

bowels, or spreading vulgar ointments for agricultural ailments.

 

A man of this sort was not fit society for Dr Fillgrave of

Barchester. That must be admitted. And yet he had been found to be

fit society for the old squire of Greshamsbury, whose shoe-ribbons Dr

Fillgrave would not have objected to tie; so high did the old squire

stand in the county just previous to his death. But the spirit of the

Lady Arabella was known by the medical profession of Barsetshire, and

when that good man died it was felt that Thorne’s short tenure of

Greshamsbury favour was already over. The Barsetshire regulars were,

however, doomed to disappointment. Our doctor had already contrived

to endear himself to the heir; and though there was not even then

much personal love between him and the Lady Arabella, he kept his

place at the great house unmoved, not only in the nursery and in the

bedrooms, but also at the squire’s dining-table.

 

Now there was in this, it must be admitted, quite enough to make him

unpopular with his brethren; and this feeling was soon shown in a

marked and dignified manner. Dr Fillgrave, who had certainly the

most respectable professional connexion in the county, who had a

reputation to maintain, and who was accustomed to meet, on almost

equal terms, the great medical baronets from the metropolis at the

houses of the nobility—Dr Fillgrave declined to meet Dr Thorne in

consultation. He exceedingly regretted, he said, most exceedingly,

the necessity which he felt of doing so: he had never before had

to perform so painful a duty; but, as a duty which he owed to his

profession, he must perform it. With every feeling of respect for

Lady –-, a sick guest at Greshamsbury—and for Mr Gresham, he must

decline to attend in conjunction with Dr Thorne. If his services

could be made available under any other circumstances, he would go to

Greshamsbury as fast as post-horses could carry him.

 

Then, indeed, there was war in Barsetshire. If there was on Dr

Thorne’s cranium one bump more developed than another, it was that of

combativeness. Not that the doctor was a bully, or even pugnacious,

in the usual sense of the word; he had no disposition to provoke a

fight, no propense love of quarrelling; but there was that in him

which would allow him to yield to no attack. Neither in argument nor

in contest would he ever allow himself to be wrong; never at least to

any one but to himself; and on behalf of his special hobbies, he was

ready to meet the world at large.

 

It will therefore be understood, that when such a gauntlet was thus

thrown in his very teeth by Dr Fillgrave, he was not slow to take it

up. He addressed a letter to the Barsetshire Conservative Standard,

in which he attacked Dr Fillgrave with some considerable acerbity.

Dr Fillgrave responded in four lines, saying that on mature

consideration he had made up his mind not to notice any remarks

that might be made on him by Dr Thorne in the public press. The

Greshamsbury doctor then wrote another letter, more witty and much

more severe than the last; and as this was copied into the Bristol,

Exeter, and Gloucester papers, Dr Fillgrave found it very difficult

to maintain the magnanimity of his reticence. It is sometimes

becoming enough for a man to wrap himself in the dignified toga of

silence, and proclaim himself indifferent to public attacks; but it

is a sort of dignity which it is very difficult to maintain. As well

might a man, when stung to madness by wasps, endeavour to sit in his

chair without moving a muscle, as endure with patience and without

reply the courtesies of a newspaper opponent. Dr Thorne wrote a third

letter, which was too much for medical flesh and blood to bear. Dr

Fillgrave answered it, not, indeed, in his own name, but in that of

a brother doctor; and then the war raged merrily. It is hardly too

much to say that Dr Fillgrave never knew another happy hour. Had he

dreamed of what materials was made that young compounder of doses at

Greshamsbury he would have met him in consultation, morning, noon,

and night, without objection; but having begun the war, he was

constrained to go on with it: his brethren would allow him no

alternative. Thus he was continually being brought up to the fight,

as a prize-fighter may be seen to be, who is carried up round after

round, without any hope on his own part, and who, in each round,

drops to the ground before the very wind of his opponent’s blows.

 

But Dr Fillgrave, though thus weak himself, was backed in practice

and in countenance by nearly all his brethren in the county. The

guinea fee, the principle of giving advice and of selling no

medicine, the great resolve to keep a distinct barrier between

the physician and the apothecary, and, above all, the hatred of

the contamination of a bill, were strong in the medical mind of

Barsetshire. Dr Thorne had the provincial medical world against him,

and so he appealed to the metropolis. The Lancet took the matter up

in his favour, but the Journal of Medical Science was against him;

the Weekly Chirurgeon, noted for its medical democracy, upheld him

as a medical prophet, but the Scalping Knife, a monthly periodical

got up in dead opposition to the Lancet, showed him no mercy. So

the war went on, and our doctor, to a certain extent, became a noted

character.

 

He had, moreover, other difficulties to encounter in his professional

career. It was something in his favour that he understood his

business; something that he was willing to labour at it with energy;

and resolved to labour at it conscientiously. He had also other

gifts, such as conversational brilliancy, an aptitude for true

good fellowship, firmness in friendship, and general honesty of

disposition, which stood him in stead as he advanced in life. But,

at his first starting, much that belonged to himself personally was

against him. Let him enter what house he would, he entered it with a

conviction, often expressed to himself, that he was equal as a man to

the proprietor, equal as a human being to the proprietress. To age he

would allow deference, and to special recognised talent—at least so

he said; to rank also, he would pay that respect which was its clear

and recognised prerogative; he would let a lord walk out of a room

before him if he did not happen to forget it; in speaking to a duke

he would address him as his Grace; and he would in no way assume a

familiarity with bigger men than himself, allowing to the bigger man

the privilege of making the first advances. But beyond this he would

admit that no man should walk the earth with his head higher than his

own.

 

He did not talk of these things much; he offended no rank by boasts

of his own equality; he did not absolutely tell the Earl de Courcy in

words, that the privilege of dining at Courcy Castle was to him no

greater than the privilege of dining at Courcy Parsonage; but there

was that in his manner that told it. The feeling in itself was

perhaps good, and was certainly much justified by the manner in which

he bore himself to those below him in rank; but there was folly in

the resolution to run counter to the world’s recognised rules on such

matters; and much absurdity in his mode of doing so, seeing that at

heart he was a thorough Conservative. It is hardly too much to say

that he naturally hated a lord at first sight; but, nevertheless, he

would have expended his means, his blood, and spirit, in fighting for

the upper house of Parliament.

 

Such a disposition, until it was thoroughly understood, did not tend

to ingratiate him with the wives of the country gentlemen among whom

he had to look for practice. And then, also, there was not much in

his individual manner to recommend him to the favour of ladies. He

was brusque, authoritative, given to contradiction, rough though

never dirty in his personal belongings, and inclined to indulge

in a sort of quiet raillery, which sometimes was not thoroughly

understood. People did not always know whether he was laughing

at them or with them; and some people were, perhaps, inclined to

think that a doctor should not laugh at all when called in to act

doctorially.

 

When he was known, indeed, when the core of the fruit had been

reached, when the huge proportions of that loving trusting heart had

been learned, and understood, and appreciated, when that honesty had

been recognised, that manly, and almost womanly tenderness had been

felt, then, indeed, the doctor was acknowledged to be adequate in his

profession. To trifling ailments he was too often brusque. Seeing

that he accepted money for the cure of such, he should, we may say,

have cured them without an offensive manner. So far he is without

defence. But to real suffering no one found him brusque; no patient

lying painfully on a bed of sickness ever thought him rough.

 

Another misfortune was, that he was a bachelor. Ladies think, and

I, for one, think that ladies are quite right in so thinking, that

doctors should be married men. All the world feels that a man when

married acquires some of the attributes of an old woman—he becomes,

to a certain extent, a motherly sort of being; he acquires a

conversance with women’s ways and women’s wants, and loses the wilder

and offensive sparks of his virility. It must be easier to talk to

such a one about Matilda’s stomach, and the growing pains in Fanny’s

legs, than to a young bachelor. This impediment also stood much in Dr

Thorne’s way during his first years at Greshamsbury.

 

But his wants were not at first great; and though his ambition was

perhaps high, it was not of an impatient nature. The world was his

oyster; but, circumstanced as he was, he knew that it was not for him

to open it with his lancet all at once. He had bread to earn, which

he must earn wearily; he had a character to make, which must come

slowly; it satisfied his soul that, in addition to his immortal

hopes, he had a possible future in this world to which he could look

forward with clear eyes, and advance with a heart that would know no

fainting.

 

On his first arrival at Greshamsbury he had been put by the squire

into a house, which he still occupied when that squire’s grandson

came of age. There were two decent, commodious, private houses in the

village—always excepting the rectory, which stood grandly in its own

grounds, and, therefore, was considered as ranking above the village

residences—of these two Dr Thorne had the smaller. They stood

exactly at the angle before described, on the outer side of it, and

at